


Make Your Home In Me

by Nitrobot



Series: VenomCat Stories [4]
Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse), Venom (Comics)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 17:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20745788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitrobot/pseuds/Nitrobot
Summary: Eddie remembers the night he died and went somewhere he shouldn't have been, and met someone he shouldn't have been able to see.





	Make Your Home In Me

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how much longer after BWRAO this takes place- let's say two months or so.

“What are you thinking about?”

It was a common question that passed between them, almost as often as the symbiote did, one that was rarely ever asked out loud because it rarely needed to be spoken. On this occasion it did, because Felicia wanted to hear the answer from him without Symby filtering any of it. Because she knew neither of them would sleep unless she got it out of him.

And Eddie had thought he’d hidden his fears from her so well… he gulped down the lump in his throat that was stopping him from falling asleep, and tried not to blink too much. She couldn’t see his eyes, not with her head perfectly buried in the crevice of his neck, but she could hear his heartbeat through his jugular. She knew exactly how fast, how slow it was, how often it stalled when he thought about her. And he _ was _ thinking about her, always, but something else was souring the bliss. That was the biggest problem with regular sex; the clarity, the painful awareness that came afterwards while lying in the dark together wasn’t always good. In his case, it never was. 

“...The night I died,” he finally told her, and he felt her head move against his. His hand was still on her cheek, and in the slit of moonlight leaking through the curtains he could see her eyes. 

“You actually died?” She sounded surprised, a warm whisper just under his chin, and he realised that this whole time she hadn’t known- hell, Symby hadn’t even known what happened to him that night, and he barely knew himself. Cause how was he supposed to mention it to Felicia? _ ‘Oh, by the way, I think I went to purgatory the same night we killed Carnage and then first slept together,’ _was kind of a mood-killer. But… it was out now. As if he could ever really hide it from her. 

“Yeah.” He shifted himself, laying his head sideways on the pillow to face her. Symby swam through his eyes, letting him see her despite the dark around them. “I… don’t know how long for. But it felt like hours. Like… one of those dreams where you wake up and it’s only been a few minutes since you fell asleep.” He didn’t mention just how often he felt like that nowadays, but he felt Felicia move closer to him. With how close they were already, he didn’t need to speak to pull her further in. 

“Did you see anything?” she asked, and he had to think about what to tell her next. What _ did _ he see? What did he _ not _see? What was it all supposed to fucking mean? 

“I... saw my Mom,” he said, the only thing he could say for certain without thinking too much about it and giving himself a headache. “Which was weird, cause I… never really knew what she looked like. Not outside of pictures, at least.” Sure, that was the only weird thing about it. Not the fact that he was seeing her at all. Not the fact that he was allowed to come back. What magic mystical force was so intent on keeping him alive so he could just keep making everyone around him miserable? He'd think it was the Devil, but… at this point in his life, the Devil had nothing on him. 

There was a scrape across his skull; Symby buzzing in his brain, scolding him for thinking like that, as if she could fix him with negative reinforcement. Not just her, though- his hair was brushed, Felicia's fingers and their long nails wreathing through it, as she sat up to stroke his head.

“D’you think it was really her?” she asked softly, and though he felt peace from her touch he had to turn away, facing the ceiling as if he could find any answers if he stared hard enough through it, up to the dark heavens that kept casting him out.

“That’s the thing," he eventually sighed, closing his eyes in defeat. "I have no fucking idea. I don’t know what she’s _ supposed _to be like cause I never knew her. I don’t know if it was just some hallucination or some random shit my brain made up when it thought I was doomed, and… I never will. And it fucks me up.” 

_ ‘As you can probably tell,' _ he silently added, knowing that Symby likely passed it along anyway. She was matching Felicia's fingers, stroking across his brain to try and soothe it, dousing the chemical fires. Doing the best she could, the both of them, which was more than he ever deserved.   
“Doesn’t sound random to me," Felicia said, resting her chin on his head. "If you really did die, then why would you ‘think’ of someone you’ve never met?”

He pushed air through his teeth, because he couldn't bother with a shrug. “Desperation, I guess.” His arm, hanging near the edge of the bed, found itself above his head so his palm could reach Felicia's face, once more against her cheek. After so long spent in the company of something that lived in his blood, he felt more secure when he could feel something solid; soft skin that was warm with Symby swimming through the capillaries. 

“I’m not a very spiritual person," she told him, her voice thrumming through his fingers, "but it sounds like the real deal to me. After all, we’ve got vampires and Norse Gods walking the Earth. Ghosts aren’t too much of a stretch to believe in.”

“Maybe…" Eddie's head fell to the side again, his sigh filling the crook of her neck. "I don’t think it was really her, though. She wasn’t disappointed enough.”

“What’d I tell you about doing that, Eddie?" Felicia moved her head so she could scold him with a glare. "Stop it. Stop putting yourself down like that.”

Even though he hated disappointing her, he couldn't stop himself smiling just a little. "You know I can’t help it, babe.”

“I know." A soft mumble, with her lips pressed against his forehead. "But I don’t like it.”

** _“And neither do I.”_ ** He couldn't tell where Symby was, whether she was in him or her. It didn't really matter, since he always felt her voice through his bones. Even when cancer was stripping away every ounce of marrow he had, that's how he heard her. He wondered if that was how Felicia heard her too.

“I just don’t know what to think," he whispered against her. "If that _ was _ her, and I _ did _ die… why am I back here? This is… what, the third chance I’ve been given? Fourth? I keep getting good things I don’t deserve, and I don’t know why.” Maybe that was his punishment. Not being allowed to die, no matter how much he tried. There had to be _ some _ catch, after all, to having Symby and Felicia. In a good world, people like him didn’t get to be happy. And if this _ wasn’t _a good world… what was the point in even trying to save it? What was the point in getting himself killed in the first place? 

“Maybe think of it as karma,” Felicia offered. “Life paying you back for all the shit it’s given you.”

“I wish I could.” And he really did. “But I stopped believing in all that a while ago.” He’d thought it would make things easier, not having to answer to anyone. Not having to worry about being watched by someone or something who didn’t even exist. But, when he lost Symby, it only left him as lonely as ever.

“You wanna know a secret?” Felicia asked him, that playful whisper telling him she was smiling for him. “I don’t actually believe in luck. But it still works out pretty well in my favor. And I bet you didn’t believe in aliens before Symby came along.”

She had a point, because of course she did. It was one that he knew he wouldn’t be able to accept. 

“Even if you’re right, and belief has nothing to do with it…” He turned over towards her, but his eyes were on the hand he held to his mouth. “...I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“That one day I’ll wake up and one of you won’t be here.”

There was a painful silence, that only made him more aware of how pathetic he was. He expected to feel Felicia retreat from him, to feel Symby flee from his veins… but they only pulled him in tighter to themselves. 

"Oh, Eddie…" Felicia embraced him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders and head so that his face was close to her chest. He never thought a heartbeat could be so calming, one amplified by the symbiote that tied them both together. It was like osmosis between them- Symby moved to wherever she was needed most, seeping through their membranes and pores. He could feel her dripping from Felicia’s hand as it went through his hair, soaking back through his skull to nestle in his neurons. They were trying so hard to make him accept even this small peace, to make him realise that he was _ allowed _to be happy. 

“Do you remember when I took that bullet through my spine?” Felicia asked him, her breath a warm breeze along the bridge of his nose.

“Hard to forget something like that,” he told her, even though he tried to. 

“And when I asked you to stay with me… what did you say?”

Eddie remembered it, that absolute truth from both his and Symby’s mouths. Just like it had then, it came out that way now. **“We’re not going anywhere…”**

“And it’s true,” Felicia assured, brushing some hair back from his forehead. “Cause where else would we rather be?”

Eddie blinked away tears as they threatened to gather, so they wouldn’t get in the way when he looked up at her. He reached for her face, just to be sure that it was really there, that this wasn’t just another blessed hallucination that would have him waking up to an inferno again. And once he was sure that she was real and she was here and she had no reason to lie, he reminded her of something else very, very important. Something that he must have told her a hundred times by now.

“God, I love you.”

He felt her cheek shift, her mouth stretching in a smile because yes, he _ had _told her a hundred times. “I know.”

“I’m gonna keep saying it, though,” he promised. 

“Please do.” That earned him a kiss, a long one where she lay under him, and he so easily lost himself in her that he almost forgot the way back to his brain and all its baggage and dark matter.

Almost.

"You're still worrying about something,” she said, when their lips finally parted. Symby was coiled in the pit of her stomach, telling her everything, ruining the moment for his own good. 

"That obvious?" he breathed.

"To us, at least." She had him trapped, both by her arms around his neck and her eyes letting him know, _ pleading _for him to know that he didn’t have to hide anything. That if he did, Symby would just reveal it anyway. Eddie let his head fall, his forehead against hers.

“I didn’t belong there, with Mom,” he said. “I don’t feel like I belong here, either…”

“But you keep coming every night,” Felicia pointed out.

“Of course I do. You’re very good at helping with that.” Even when her hand smacked against his shoulder and she pushed him over to the side of the bed, he could tell she was holding back a laugh.

“I’m serious, Eddie.” She curled against him, bringing his arm close around her to encase herself in the tense muscles. “I want you to be happy here… with me."

Eddie blinked- God, is that what he was making her think? That he was so fucked up he couldn’t be happy with her, _ her _ ? "I _ am _happy, Felicia- hell, I'd never leave if I could." Most of the time he didn’t even need to leave for work, not so long as he knew what he had to write up for a week. Though, with Felicia around, he didn’t get much work done anyway. 

"You could, y'know." Her mouth moved against his chest, a cryptic mumble. Did he say something out loud without realising, or was Symby talking for him?

“Could… what?"

“Never have to leave,” she clarified, looking up at him from his chest. “If you lived here.”

Eddie had to make sure his ears were working. Yes, Symby told him, they definitely were. So how did he just hear… how did Felicia just ask him to move in? Was she joking? She must have been, there was a glint in her eyes that he recognised, but… it wasn’t mischievous. She wasn’t planning something. She was just waiting for him to answer.

“...Do you want us to?” he asked, after a gulp that left a symbiote aftertaste at the back of his mouth.

“I do,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Do you really like your apartment so much?”

“N-no! No no, I-” He breathed. He had to make himself breathe, before Symby made him- though, she seemed just as distracted as him. “We just... don’t want you getting sick of us,” he admitted, realising how terrified he was of that happening.

Felicia blinked, and pulled herself closer to him, pressing her mouth to its favourite place on his neck. “But I miss you too much when you’re not here.” 

Holy shit, she was serious. He’d- _ they’d _\- somehow tricked her into wanting them around for longer than a night. Was it just Stockholm syndrome? Nothing else made sense. Nothing else, except… accepting that Venom wasn’t so bad after all. 

He didn’t know if he was ready for that. But Felicia was. Seemed to be, at least. Somehow. 

“When you put it that way…” he said, almost croaking on the Klyntar in his throat. “We would be honored to steal half of this bed from you.”

“What if I’m over here as well with you?” she asked, pulling herself so she was right on top of him. They’d spent most of the night already in this position, and Eddie had to stop himself from grabbing her ass out of habit. 

“Well, then you’re just letting the other half go to waste,” he told her, now concerned with not getting turned on when he should be getting to sleep. “Not very efficient use of space.”

“Maybe not,” she agreed. “But it _ is _ warm.” And she gladly burrowed into him, fully intending to distract him from everything in the best way she knew. Normally it would have worked and he’d have been happy to give in, but this was a thing he couldn’t get over. Moving in. Moving in with her. Because she _ wanted _him to. Not even Symby knew what to say, or do. He was sure she was just looking forward to a better TV.

“Only problem is,” Eddie coughed, “where oh where will I fit my vast collection of useless hoarded shit?” 

“I’m sure we’ll find room,” Felicia purred.

“And you’ll need to stock up on chocolate for the other houseguest.”

“Of course.”

“And you won’t have the bathroom to yourself anymore.”

“If you’re trying to make me change my mind,” she sighed against him, “it’s not working.”

He felt himself blush, somewhat assured that not all his blood was being drained downwards. “Just… want you to be sure about it.”

“I am. Absolutely. Hell, we’re already sharing a symbiote, I’d say sharing a bathroom is a step down.” She finally released him from her body, settling by his side just as he felt an erection rise against all his efforts to keep it down. “Before we know it,” she was saying, “we’ll be arguing over who gets to kick Peter’s ass first like an old married couple.”

Eddie grunted, the only sound he could really make while trying to get Symby to help reign his body back under control. But once she finally got to work telling his arteries to calm down and he had a chance to actually listen to what Felicia said… he had a thought. A dangerously nice one, one that he’d be having horribly wistful dreams about if he didn’t ask about it.

“..._ Do _you wanna get married?” he asked. “N-not right now, obviously, I mean, but… in general-"

“Goodnight, Eddie.” Felicia had turned away from him, and sleep was all that consumed her mind. This would not be a night where she would let them in on her own secrets so easily. Maybe some day. Maybe when Eddie could be finally sure of himself, of what he was, he could repay her for all she’d done for him. Some day when he could find the way, and when she would let him. Maybe that day would be a wedding. And maybe this time it wouldn’t end so badly. 

_ ‘Goodnight, baby.’ _He closed around her, a cocoon of his muscles finally making themselves good for something. And, around him, he felt Symby close in too, swallowing up the moonlight that hit his back, buzzing with excitement about the coming change in scenery. 

Eddie was more subdued. Wherever his two loves were, no matter where, was home for him.


End file.
